Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-zzw9c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-22T09:51:31.946Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Obligation at zero acquaintance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2020

David Dunning Open the ORCID record for David Dunning [Opens in a new window] ,
Detlef Fetchenhauer  and
Thomas Schlösser
David Dunning
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI48109ddunning@umich.eduhttps://lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/faculty/ddunning.html
Detlef Fetchenhauer
Affiliation:
Institute for Sociology and Social Psychology, University at Cologne, 50931Köln, Germany. detlef-fetchenhauer@uni-koeln.de t.schloesser@uni-koeln.de https://www.iss-wiso.uni-koeln.de/en/institute/staff/f/prof-dr-detlef-fetchenhauer/ https://www.iss-wiso.uni-koeln.de/de/institut/personen/s/pd-dr-thomas-schloesser/
Thomas Schlösser
Affiliation:
Institute for Sociology and Social Psychology, University at Cologne, 50931Köln, Germany. detlef-fetchenhauer@uni-koeln.de t.schloesser@uni-koeln.de https://www.iss-wiso.uni-koeln.de/en/institute/staff/f/prof-dr-detlef-fetchenhauer/ https://www.iss-wiso.uni-koeln.de/de/institut/personen/s/pd-dr-thomas-schloesser/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Social obligation begins far before people establish explicit cooperative relationships. Research on trust suggests that people feel obligated to trust other people even at zero acquaintance, thus trusting complete strangers even though they privately expect to be exploited. Such obligations promote mutually beneficial behavior among strangers and likely help people build goodwill needed for more long-lasting relationships.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 43 , 2020 , e69
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Berg, J., Dickhaut, J. & McCabe, K. (1995) Trust, reciprocity, and social history. Games and Economic Behavior 10(1):122–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cain, D. M., Dana, J. & Newman, G. E. (2014) Giving versus giving in. The Academy of Management Annals 8(1):505–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cosmides, L, Barrett, H. C. & Tooby, J. (2010) Adaptive specializations, social exchange, and the evolution of human intelligence. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107(Suppl. 2):9007–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunning, D., Anderson, J. E., Schlösser, T., Ehlebracht, D. & Fetchenhauer, D. (2014) Trust at zero acquaintance: More a matter of respect than expectation of reward. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 107(1):122–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunning, D., Fetchenhauer, D. & Schlösser, T. (2012) Trust as a social and emotional act: Noneconomic considerations in trust behavior. Journal of Economic Psychology 33(3):686–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunning, D., Fetchenhauer, D. & Schlösser, T. (2016) The psychology of respect: A case study of how behavioral norms regulate human action. In: Advances in motivation science, vol. 3, ed. Elliot, A., pp. 1–34. Elsevier.Google Scholar
Dunning, D., Fetchenhauer, D. & Schlösser, T. (2019) Why people trust: Solved puzzles and open mysteries. Current Directions in Psychological Science 28(4):366–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fetchenhauer, D. & Dunning, D. (2009) Do people trust too much or too little? Journal of Economic Psychology 30(3):263–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fetchenhauer, D. & Dunning, D. (2012) Betrayal aversion versus principled trustfulness: How to explain risk avoidance and risky choices in trust games. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 81(2):534–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fetchenhauer, D., Dunning, D. & Schlösser, T. (2017) The mystery of trust: Trusting too much while trusting too little at the same time. In: Trust in social dilemmas, ed. Van Lange, P., Rockenbach, B. & Yamagishi, T., pp. 139–54. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Henrich, J., Ensminger, J., McElreath, R., Barr, A., Barrett, C., Bolyanatz, A., Cardenas, J. C., Gurven, M., Gwako, E., Henrich, N., Lesorogol, C., Marlowe, F., Tracer, D. & Ziker, J. (2010) Markets, religion, community size, and the evolution of fairness and punishment. Science 327(5972):1480–84. doi:10.1126/science.1182238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higgins, E. T. (1987) Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review 94(3):319–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lawler, E. J. (2001) An affective theory of social exchange. American Journal of Sociology 107(2):321–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rousseau, D. M., Sitkin, S. B., Burt, R. & Camerer, C. (1998) Not so different after all: A cross-discipline view of trust. Academy of Management Review 23(3):393–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlösser, T., Fetchenhauer, D. & Dunning, D. (2016) Against all odds? The emotional dynamics underlying trust. Decision 3(3):216–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlösser, T., Mensching, O., Dunning, D. & Fetchenhauer, D. (2015) Trust and rationality: Shifting normative analyses in risks involving other people versus nature. Social Cognition 33(5):459–82. doi:10.1521/soco.2015.33.5.459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar